


Less By Dying

by FreshBrains



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Community: comment_fic, Gen, Minor Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, Mythology References, POV Gansey, Reincarnation, The Raven King Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 20:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8815081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: “I saw something,” Adam says urgently, lips close to Gansey’s ear. “I don’t know what it means, but I don’t like it.”“Tell me,” Gansey says, leaning in closer. Adam shifts uncomfortably, mouth pressed in a thin line. “Don’t look in the mirrors,” he says.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crookedspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/gifts).



> For the LJ Comment_fic prompt: [The Raven Cycle, Gansey (or any), AU in which Gansey is Glendower reborn](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/775203.html?thread=101093923#t101093923).
> 
> While this fic does detail an alternate plot ending, some of the plot points are taken directly from all books in the series, so **spoilers for the entire series apply**.

Gansey knows he is a Gansey, but he’s not a _Gansey_.

  
Ganseys are polished and primed, premium and high-class in the most understated ways. Helen is the ideal Gansey with her sleek bob and clicking heels; his father is the heavenly prototype they all hope to ascend to. It means something to have a Gansey at their end of your name, but ever since Gansey died and came back with a mission, he’s not really sure what that means.

  
“But you’re _Gansey_ ,” Noah says when Gansey confesses this to him in the Pig, face pinched with worry, like he’s asking questions he doesn’t want answers to. “There’s…nothing else. Just Gansey.” He picks at the frayed edge of his shirtsleeve, forever unraveling. “Right?”  
Gansey pushes Noah’s hand away, not wanting the other boy to ruin his shirt. “Of course,” he says, always reassuring. “Just Gansey.”

  
_What else could there be?_

*

Gansey is not afraid of much. There are many things he doesn’t _prefer_ , but he prides himself on keeping fear at bay, keeping it deep down until it is necessary to use it. _Fear makes for a hungry boy_ , he thinks he read somewhere once, but maybe he made that up.

  
However, when Blue Sargent, his Jane, reaches up and cups his face in her small hands, the plastic gum-ball machine ring on her finger cool against his cheek, his body jolts with something like panic. It’s not just the curse—they know the curse, they know how to survive it and love each other all the while.

  
“It’s alright,” Blue says softly, hands pausing, eyes searching. She’s bossy and brilliant and what his mom would call a _smart-aleck_ , but she’s never pushy. “Are _you_ alright?”

  
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, nuzzling his cheek into her hand. “I just…Jane. You’re so…much. You’re _special_ , you know that?”

  
Blue manages to smile and bristle at the same time, like a cheerful porcupine. “Sure, I know that. My mom tells me I’m special all the time.”

  
Gansey feels himself go red from forehead to sternum. “I really mean it, though.” He thinks about her pretty face on the tarot card, wise and knowing, _seeing_ , and thinks that he wants Blue to see him all the time. He wants Blue to see him for what he is and to maybe think that he is good. “I could never hurt you.”

  
Blue arches an eyebrow. The backs of her knuckles brush against his cheek. “I know,” she says softly, and pulls him down gently for a hug.

  
_And the best of wives_ , Gansey thinks as he sinks into her embrace. He feels silly afterward, but doesn’t want to un-think it.

*

 In the kitchen of 300 Fox Way, Orla and Jimi Sargent are welding.

  
It is wildly unsafe, deeply unwise, and from the way Orla’s hair flies out from her mask and the way Jimi’s hand shakes while wielding the torch, quite unpracticed. Gansey eyes them nervously, sparks showering onto the linoleum. Blue chases them with a plastic water bottle, making sure they sizzle out before bursting into flames.

  
In the doorway, Ronan gazes longingly at the torch, horrific ideas already forming in his mind.

  
“ _Don’t_ ,” Gansey says shortly, grasping Ronan’s shoulder.

  
“I wasn’t,” Ronan says petulantly. He and Noah exchange a disappointed glance. “You know what? Fine. We’ll wait outside.”

  
“Don’t touch the flower bed,” Calla warns from where she’s attempting to scry in the dishwater. “I just planted.”

  
“He won’t,” Gansey says, shooting Ronan a stern look. “Will he?”

  
“He won’t,” Ronan grumbles, being careful not to slam the door on the way out.

  
Calla snorts out a laugh. “They do what Daddy says, don’t they?”

  
Gansey is prepared to politely ignore the comment, but a soft noise comes from underneath the kitchen table. He leans down and comes eye-to-eye with Gwenllian, who is eating her way through a pile of Taco Bell hot sauce packets.

  
“Fathers aren’t as terribly important as people think,” she says, eyes dark and breath fiery. “Trust me.”

  
“Sure,” Gansey says uneasily.

  
Gwenllian suddenly reaches out, claw-like fingers clutching at the collar of Gansey’s polo shirt. “Don’t you be getting any ideas, mister. From motte to moat, I only had one father, and I won’t be looking for another one.” She studies him for a moment, head tilting. “Though you do wear the title well. So attentive and kind. _A fo ben, bid bont_. You keep surprising me, little prince.”

  
“Leave him be,” Blue says, and Gwenllian lets go with a laugh.

  
She points a sauce packet at Blue, spraying orange-red across the floor. “And you are certainly not my _mommy_ , little sapling.”

 *

 After Aurora Lynch died, Adam needed to be by Ronan’s side. But he still managed to pull Gansey back, away from Blue’s warm arms and Ronan’s deep sadness, away from the need of his friends.

  
“I saw something,” Adam says urgently, lips close to Gansey’s ear. “I don’t know what it means, but I don’t like it.”

  
“Tell me,” Gansey says, leaning in closer.

  
Adam shifts uncomfortably, eyes still on Ronan, mouth pressed in a thin line. “Don’t look in the mirrors,” he says.

  
Gansey’s brow furrows. “I don’t get it. Which mirrors?”

  
“ _Adam_ ,” Ronan calls out in a strangled voice, and Adam is already moving back towards the clearing by the Pig.

  
“All of them,” he says over his shoulder. “I don’t know if you want to see yourself right now.”

 *

  _This was always where it was supposed to end, he thinks_. His vision is blurring, his body is failing. He hears Blue crying and already misses her lips, the sweetness of her small mouth. He feels Noah beside him, yelling, yelling him to turn his ass back around. _This was always my tomb_.

  
And Glendower is there, hand outstretched. He’s waiting for Gansey. Maybe he’s always been waiting. Gansey strains, tries to see the king himself before he cannot see at all, wants to whisper to his friends what Owen Glendower came to be.

  
But when he looks, really _looks_ , at the face before him, all he sees is himself, staring right back, and endless meeting of wary, pained eyes.

  
“I looked in the mirror,” he grits out, fumbling for Adam, and everything goes dark.

 *

 When he wakes, he is in Blue’s arms, circled in the smell of clean sweat and grass. She is crying, tears dripping down into his shirt, but she’s _smiling_ , and lord, she has never looked so beautiful.

  
“You’re a king,” she says, nearly wailing, probably from shock, but then she’s laughing wildly, pulling him up, tugging him into her arms. “You’re a king. Not, like, _my_ king, but…how did we not know?”

  
“Because he wasn’t ready,” Adam says from where he’s sitting in the grass across from them, Ronan’s head in his lap. He strokes a thumb across Ronan’s restless brow. “He’s dreaming. Trying to find you in there, bring you out. For once, what he’s looking for has already woken up.”

  
Gansey is still half-asleep. His head throbs, and when he reaches up, he feels sticks and dirt stuck in his hair. For half a second, he thinks it is a crown. “I’m not a king,” he says groggily.

  
“Yes,” Adam says. “You are. You found him.”

  
Henry is sitting next to Blue, face ashen, mouth open in an O of shock. “Most people just go backpacking in Europe to find themselves,” he monotones, eyes wide. “You’re really a king.”

  
_No, I’m not_ , Gansey thinks, the words wanting to form again, but he’s been searching for so long, he’s been looking, and now he’s found it. He thought his life would be meaningless without a search, but as he looks around at the awestruck faces of his friends, at their love and relief, at the way they look to him for the next step, he realizes that the journey has only just begun.

  
“Yes,” he whispers. “I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a quote by Rumi. Gwenllian's Welsh quote basically translates to "If you want to be a leader, be a bridge."


End file.
